In conventional photography, the camera must typically be focused at the time the photograph is taken. The resulting image may have only color data for each pixel; accordingly, any object that was not in focus when the photograph was taken cannot be brought into sharper focus because the necessary data does not reside in the image. Further, editing such images to provide effects, such as changing colorization, changing contrast, or inserting and/or removing objects in the image, can be challenging. Typically, the user must employ careful selection of object boundaries to control how the effects are applied. Accordingly, application of effects in conventional images can be a time-consuming and labor-intensive effort.
By contrast, light-field images typically encode additional data for each pixel related to the trajectory of light rays incident to that pixel when the light-field image was taken. This data can be used to manipulate the light-field image through the use of a wide variety of rendering techniques that are not possible to perform with a conventional photograph. In some implementations, a light-field image may be refocused and/or altered to simulate a change in the center of perspective (CoP) of the camera that received the image. Further, a light-field image may be used to generate an enhanced depth-of-field (EDOF) image in which all parts of the image are in focus. A depth map can typically be obtained from a light-field image, indicating the depth at which objects in the light-field image were disposed, relative to the light-field camera, at the time the light-field image was captured.
It would be an advancement in the art to provide systems and methods for implementing effects in light-field images that can benefit from the unique properties of light-field images. Further, it would be an advancement in the art to provide systems and methods for implementing effects that are less time-consuming and labor-intensive than those applicable to conventional images.